[Deck] U/W/x Planeswalker Control

[Iron Buddha]

I hope you don't mind if I make a new thread (now there are no budget considerations; as for the other U/W thread it really looks like a relic of another time...):

the deck idea is very simple:
Not Miracle (no Sensei's Top), not Stoneforge Mystic, not Landstill,
but just a normal Planeswalker and Wrath of God (and its variants) based U/W/x control deck. The deck uses much of the old U/W/x Landstill thread, but eschews Standstill in favor of „newer“ card-advantage: Jace, Elspeth, and Snapcaster Mage.

So let's begin:

As the core of the deck I see the combination of
Elspeth Knight-Errant (assuming Elspeth is the best white Planeswalker) + Supreme Verdict
in other words: the most resilient finisher not much in use and card-advantage in the form of mass-removal (which kind of card is the main difference between control and midrange)

// core
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant (3 Elspeth simplifies a lot of sitautions compared to only 2)
3 Supreme Verdict

// go to choices (I don't specifically mark them as core components)
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor (I think only 3 is totally acceptable, but the minimum)

// the triplets
3 Cunning Wish
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Snapcaster Mage
Not core components, but I personally rate them very high - all of them.

- Wish: removal density is rather low (only 7 - 4 StP + 3 S. Verdict), but Wish directly puts the count up to 10. Secondly, Wish greatly interacts with SCM. Thirdly, it is my answer against Batterskull/Jitte and Punishing Fires
- Vendilion Clique: proactive disruption in a color that is almost 100 % reactive (counterspells). Secondly, Clique is pretty much the only way (the we have access to) to pressure combo (and miracle) decks.
- SCM: The body is kind of useful in a world of Planeswalkers, but what actually puts SCM over the top is C. Wish and Supreme Verdict (apart from his generic targets). Secondly wishing for REB and then being able to flash it back with SCM? Pretty awesome. Thirdly he is another disruptive element against Storm (although a rather slow one)

// mana-base:
23 lands
2 Eternal Dragon (could be Ponder or something else, too)

// and the last four slots are disruption cards:
4 counterspells


the deck as a whole:

// 25
4 Flooded Strand
3 Pollued Delta
4 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Plateau
2 Plain
7 Island
1 Karakas
2 Eternal Dragon

// 4
4 Brainstorm

// 7
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

// 8
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell

// 6
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Snapcaster Mage

// 10
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Cunning Wish
3 Supreme Verdict

SB:
4 Flusterstorm
4 Spell Pierce
3 Path to Exile
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Disenchant
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Surgical Extraction


I hope you like it
Thanks

[Piceli89]

Legacy is a format based on the efficiency of 1 and 2-cc drops.
Most of the tier decks are already putting you on spice by dropping an important piece of their strategy on turn 1, putting you in a position of having (or finding) an aswer as soon as possible; think of Ancestral Vision, Aether Vial, Deathrite Shaman, Delver of Secrets, Goblin Lackey.

The deck you are here proposing starts to play on turn 3, and has an incredibly low amount of fast answers to the aforementioned cards- not to mention the overkill in the 3cc and 4cc slots. It will struggle against fish-structured decks optimized to play ultralow curves; it will struggle against combo decks as your answers and your clock is just too slow. It will also struggle against well-curved midranges as they will have, when on the play, a good selection of cc2 powerdrops (Dark Confidant, Counterbalance, Stoneforge Mystic) and you'll be relying on your... 4 Force of Wills and 4 Plows?

Very poorly structured and totally unplayable in the modern Legacy.

[ivanpei]

I think there is a Superfriends thread somewhere in established for UW Elspeth-Jace Control. Generally the first thing that strikes me is our clog at 4cc. Legacy is a format where you cannot afford that many high drops. 3 Jace 2 Elspeth seems like the absolute maximum amount of 4 drops I would play. Supreme verdict is terribly slow. Engineered explosives is a better and more versatile sweeper. 4 STP is not enough spot removal, you might consider red for Bolt or Black for Disfigure/Ghastly Demise. If you stick to just UW, Path to Exile can be played as well. To smoothen your curve, you can also try Vedalken Shackles at 3cc. It's best to try to spread out your deck's curve. Clique IMO is bad in this deck because it is just an absolute removal magnet as one of the few creatures in the deck. You are basically turning on your opponent's usually dead removal spells. Unlike UW Miracles which has counterbalance-top to protect Clique, this deck does not. So I advise cutting the cliques. Good luck!

[The Treefolk Master]

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?14269-Deck-Ultimate-Walker

[serendib]

I think it is playable. I advice you somethink like this:

22 lands

4 Flooded Strand
2 Arid Mesa
2 Scalding Tarn
6 Island
3 PLains
1 Mountain
1 Karakas
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Academy Ruins

4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Entreat The Angels

3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
2 Elspeth, Knight Errant
1 Gideon Jura (literally kills BUG decks)

4 Brainstorm
2 Sensei's Devining Top
3 Ponder
1 Cunning Wish

4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce

4 Swords To Plowshares
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Supreme Verdict

Sideboard:
3 Back to Basics
3 Baneslayer Angel
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Dismantling Blow
1 Wing Shards
1 Fact or Fiction

[Iron Buddha]

I think EE (maybe 3) should fix the speed of the deck.



That looks quite interesting. While I stepped away from SDT in non Terminus / Counterbalance decks long time ago, it makes totally sense with EtA.

I suggest 3 SDT, cutting Ponder and (a few) SCM in the process. The thing is that SDT is actually the much better card, at least in a land heavy deck. SDT is also the card that enables instant speed EtA. 4x SCM is very high for a meta where there are Deathrite Shaman (and Rest in Peace). I have even cut them altogether.

Cunning Wish should at least be a 2 of I think or even a 3 of.

you want Surgical Extraction on a more consistant basis (Punishing Fire)
wishing for REB is always a great play against Jace decks
Dismantling Blow proved to be totally awesome in my recent testing.


As for Gideon Jura, I think he might not be necessary if there are already 2 EtA and 2 Elspeth. I'm also not sure if he is actually better than the third Elspeth, I mean he costs 5 mana after all.

A card I really want to see as 3 of however is Supreme Verdict. So I would straight out swap Gideon for another Supreme Verdict.

[Erdvermampfa]

I also think that it's not as bad as Piceli89 suggets, especially since threats are quite redundant right now and you can easily predict which cards you'll have to answer. Bascially, it's all about being able to handle an early Delver/Mongoose and surviving mana disruption by having a resilient mana base. Once this is accomplished decks like these become quite strong because of spells like Fact or Fiction, Planeswalkers and Cunning Wish, which is a underestimated card anyways.

However, I'm convinced that this requires running a lot of spot removal and card filtering to survive the first turns. Not running Sensei's Divining Top seems like a big mistake to me. I'd even run Ponder in addition to Top and Brainstorm because you need to find lands and the right cards in general so urgently in a meta full of Stifles, Wastelands, Dazes and Spell Pierces. It also appears to be reasonable to run an unusual high amount of basics (which you do anyway) since this will void the game plan of disruption decks a lot. Furthermore I'd prefer Supreme Verdict over any other sweeper right now, because that 'uncounterable' clause really makes the difference against RUG, Merfolk etc. Engineered Explosives just threatens to be Stifled in decisive moments and it's bonus of being an out against permanents becomes less relevant because of Cunning Wish. Also, with Shardless BUG being a topdeck right now EE gets weaker as this deck's creatures tend to have different mana costs. Terminus is probably also fine but it requires a whole different approach of deck building and isn't as reliable against RUG neither. I suggest to pack 6 Spot removal so you'll consistently have a solution for Delvers and 3-4 Verdicts which are your answer to Mongoose (which become threatening rather late in the game) as well as to creature swarms. It's soothing to know that once you hit 4 mana you'll have an definite answer to your opponents threats.

At last, I can definitely recommend to pack a Misdirection as a Wish target in the sideboard because it has got so many nice targets right now. Just think of misdirecting Ancestral Vision, Hymn to Tourach or Bolts etc. Also, Wear/Tear seems like the best choice for permanent removal as for now, mainly because it can create card advantage and get rid of Choke rather cheaply.

Hopefully this is some help to you and it'd be nice to hear how testing has gone so far.

[Iron Buddha]

Sorry for responding so late.

As of late, I tried many variations and finally went rather radical. I think I have a few points, so I write them up here.

I again tried to build around the idea of Accelerated Blue. The deck also features a strong Draw, Go element, so the result is a mixture of Draw, Go and Accelerated Blue.

// Lands: 23
4 Flooded Strand
12 Island
7 Plain

// stack-control: 8
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell

// ambush-attackers: 3
3 Vendilion Clique

// draw, go: 10
4 Eternal Dragon
3 Cunning Wish
3 Fact or Fiction

// pointed removal: 9
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Path to Exile
2 Engineered Explosives

// mass-removal: 4
3 Supreme Verdict
1 Akroma's Vengeance

// roadblock: 3
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Batterskull

SB:
4 Flusterstorm
4 Spell Pierce
1 Path to Exile
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Dismantling Blow
1 Forbid
1 Fracturing Gust
1 Pulse of the Fields

While the original Accelerated Blue accelerated actively with grim Monolith, this one - given the circumstances – is better off with a passive „acceleration“, that is, a steady drop of lands, and Wasteland immunity.

My „Morphling“ of choice are Elspeth, Knight-Errant and Batterskull. There are a few other possibilities that I could choose – Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Baneslayer Angel, Sun Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, Meloku, Consecrated Sphinx, Vedalken Shackles, etc. (The people from the Nic Fit thread know them best). I think they can all be worth it in the right shell.

The Draw, Go element
Since I've seen the new Draw, Go deck by Wafo Tapa in Modern using Think Twice, Electrolyze and Sphinx Revelation, I was reminded that Draw, Go is a cool strategy, and that supposedly bad cards (Think Twice), aren't bad. In Legacy the best draw, go cards are Eternal Dragon, Wish and FoF.

Why no Stoneforge Mystic? Eternal Dragon has better interaction with Supreme Verdict, Elspeth, and Fact or Fiction (with all 4cc bombs in general, but most strikingly with Supreme Verdict), plus you have to acknowledge how good 5/5 flying beater actually is. The power of Stoneforge Mystic is that you don't have to make your land drops, but if you can make them, other cards become viable, too.

Why no Brainstorm? I've come to question the strength of Brainstorm in non-Miracle control decks. Cantrips have always been mediocre in control (see Soorani on Preordain in the former Standard format). Brainstorm was also questioned several times on this forum: see the MUC thread, the Landstill thread where they went down to three copies, the Ultimate Walker thread, and the Nic Fit thread.
The thing is, that you always have to take into account what card you could run instead. You could run more spot-removal (with BS you have to be lucky to draw into one), more Vendilion Clique, more Cunning Wishes that can fetch artifact removal, etc.
Intrinsically Brainstorm doesn't give any cumulative advantage as cards like Wall of Omens, Augur of Bolas, Court Hussar, etc. (body AND card). While these cards fail, because their body kind of fails in Legacy of Delver, Tarmogoyf, Deathrite, and combo decks, you get the point.
I think the reasoning behind BS is that you improve many matchups and many stages of the game at the same time, instead of one specific matchup or one specific stage of the game, but in reality that is not true. Again, BS is totally on different level in RUG Delver, Storm or Miracle, but BS is not an auto-inclusion in every blue deck.
In RUG Delver it so good, because it acts as a card-advantage spell (Ancestral Recall) except that it costs one mana. But if you scale up and run many more lands, the math on BS is messed up, and it doesn't generate much card-advantage.

Top is different, because the card-quality of Top is just not normal, but Top can be very mana-intensive if you need the top card all the time and if you don't have a shuffle effect. Top is very time consuming; I have to say that I'm not convinced that I'm doing something productive when I'm spinning my top around: you're not generating any card-advantage, you're forced to play rather slow, etc.

Vendilion Clique: I want at least three instant speed creatures to pressure combo decks, Clique is the best.

Cunning Wish: deals with Artifacts and Punishing Fires. The fourth is definitely not needed, but I like to have 4 ways to deal with artifacts (manly Batterskull, but also things like Vedalken Shackles, etc.) (or 3 Wish, and 1 other artifact removal like Akroma's Vengeance)

The combo-matchup: I'm fully aware that my preboard combo matchup is very bad (but not unwinnable). But this is very hard to change.

On EE: I regard EE as a spot-removal that can deal with Nimble Mongoose (and Jitte, Counterbalance, etc.). While EE is prone to Stifle, the only real compititor in U/W is PtE, so I think I go for a split, because the advantages of EE are too good to pass up.

On the Tempo Thresh matchup: The problem is that there is a tension between the Tempo Thresh matchup and the Stoneforge/Cascade/Punshing Fires matchup, because the former wants you to run more cheap removal, whereas the latter wants you to run more bombs (high-costed cards). I think I'm running enough cheap removal to make the Tempo Thresh matchup solid, but keep in mind that if you push it even further you're weakening the midrange mtachup, that, I think, is even more important in today's metagame.
However both matchup wants you to run a strong mana-base what makes Eternal Dragon very good.

EDIT: I've made two changes, makes the deck a bit faster: -1 Batterskull, +1 PtE, -1 Wish, +1 Akroma's Vengeance

[Erdvermampfa]

I can definitely relate to your argumentation that Brainstorm feels somewhat lackluster in decks like these and I think people (including me) just categorically incorporate it in their blue decks because it appears to be the general consensus that Brainstorm is a must-have in every blue deck that runs fetchlands. It usually doesn't come to mind that it somewhat limits design space and that you could do well without it as well. One has to acknowledge though that it is cards like Brainstorm and Top that provide this certain consistency non-blue decks lack.

Your approach is fairly appealing to me, especially since it basically voids Wasteland and to and extend Stifle too. Eternal Dragon has been nice too because it virtually increases the number of land to 27 and thus guarantees that you hit the 4th land regularly. His body is useful at stalling the board after you gained control or at winning the game. Furthermore it's unnecessary to mention how strong Fact or Fiction and Cunning Wish become if your manabase allows constant land drops.

I've tested this deck a bit (with the exception that my 'Morphlings' were 2 Jace and 2 Elspeth) and I'm indeed satisfied. It basically accomplishes what I tried to do with other control decks, namely having a strong game against RUG as well as maintaining a powerful late game. However, the most severe issues are the lack of reliable Planeswalker solutions besides Counterspell and Force of will (sometimes Wish) and the occasional inconsistency and topdeck dependency due to the lack of library manipulation. Also, I feel that the Shardless BUG matchup is kind of bad because Jace, Liliana, Hymn, Ancestral Vision etc. are just too much to answer. Hence I propose to include one Misdirection in the SB because this single addition can turn this MU to our favor. Misdirecting Ancestral Vision or Hymn can really be decisive and they do these plays mostly at times we can cast Cunning Wish. I've also contemplated about adding something like Wipe Away or even Oblation (probably atrocious idea) to the SB because opposing Jaces/Lilianas/elspeths can hardly be dealt with (Clique doesn't suffice to get rid of Jace most of the times).

Have you made similar experiences or got different ideas how to further improve this deck (which is not bad at all right now)?

[kiblast]

So you run Eternal Dragon to hit the 4th land, but you cut Brainstorm.
Brainstorm holds your deck together. Turns unkeepable hands into snap keeps. Improves your mulligans. Helps you against combo. Helps you finding lands. It does an obscene amount of things. For sure Dragon is better at finding lands but it just does that and that's basically it. Brainstorm is more versatile.
I mean just read the cards.

[mini1337s]

If you want to play early 00s "Keeper," you are going to need some better catch-all permanents, like Moat or Humility.
The second think you need to do is increase your mana-production, not through cycling Eternal Dragon, but through mana rocks like Talisman of Progress, Azorious Signet, or Mox Diamond. You'll also need to play with some Sol-Lands to get into your late game.

Everyone gets that you want to play an old-skool U/W control list, but there is a reason it doesn't show up in tournaments; that style of deck is dead. Competitive legacy is too fast and most decks pack generally better cards. You are going to face decks that make 2/2s and Ancestral Recall on Turn 2, while you cycle Eternal Dragons for a plains. EoT Fact of Fiction? Daze. Pierce. etc. It's just not going to work. Do yourself a favor and give a deck like Miracles a chance, as it's the closest you can get to that style of deck. Otherwise, play cube and suck up the U/W cards.

[Iron Buddha]

@ kiblast
Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but my BS often ends up rather mediocre. Hell, is Brainstorm actually better than Sensei's Top? Because with Top you can manipulate your library again and again.

@ mini
Of course I could play Miracle, but isn't deckbuilding something off the mainstream part of the fun of the game?

In grindy matchups Talisman of Progress is much worse than Eternal Dragon, because this is where a 5/5 flying creature can act as another source for the attrition war.

Humility only works with manlands, otherwise your win-con is just too slow.

@erdvermampfa
I sometimes have color issues, too. I think a single Tundra (and maybe two more fetchlands) is the most elegant way to fix this.

Batterskull was awful, I definitely go back to real Planeswalkers. I agree 2 Elspeth, 2 Jace looks better.

From my experience Elspeth, Vendilion Clique, O-Ring/D-Sphere and Jace himself are the most potent cards against Planeswalkers (in UW colors). Another one is Geist, but Geist can be very bad, if they have a blocker. Actually Elspeth is the best.
I've thought several times about moving one (or two) Cliques to the board. It is nice, because it scales (and doesn't collide) with your 4c bombs that we have so many (but they are really worth it, it's impressing how much more powerful 4c cards are than 3c cards), but at the end of the day Clique is just a 3/1 creature (meaning it dies horribly to Tarmogoyf), is legendary and if the PW already stayed in play for a turn too long, it can be somewhat unreliable to kill the PW.

If my opponent has a PW, and I have a C. Wish, I normally wish for FoF. If your library is full of good anti Planeswalkers cards, then FoF is likewise very good against PW. That being said, I would stay away from cards like Wipe Away, and instead pack real bombs that I could board in.

Misdirection is a card haven't tried out yet, but on the surface the problem I see is that it is rather unimpressing against the other grindy matchup: Stoneblade.

[Erdvermampfa]

Well Elspeth and Clique really seem to be the best options we have got to handle planeswalkers though that frequently doesn't work in reality because they still get the chance to activate their Jace or Liliana a few times to find solutions or they spend the otherwise useless removal on Clique. Geist seems to be a potent card and could certainly serve as a finisher and planeswalker removal but he doesn't play well along with own mass removal (it happens that you need to remove threats even after you dropped your win condition). His usefulness is also fairly restricted to the aforementioned applications and doesn't serve that many roles as Clique does.

But the actual reason I post again is that I've thought about cutting the Dragons for Impulse. Impulse finds lands nearly as well and should mitigate those consistency issues that this deck sometimes suffers from. It makes the deck less random and helps when your urgently in need for and answer (be it mass removal or counter against combo etc.). It appears to be the best instant cantrip if your decks runs no fetchlands and obviously it's just another card that can be pitched to Force of Will. It would be the substitution of Brainstorm. Since you'd lower your number of potential finishers by that I'd suggest to to cut one Fact or Fiction (I know this is awkward) for another planeswalker. Jace would be the most obvious choice because he can fulfill a similiar role as Fact or Fiction, namely generating card advantage. Yet Gideon Jura has to be taken into consideration as well because he'd improve the Shardless BUG matchup.

And though repeating myself I say that this deck's manabase is the best 'innovation' because the immunity to Wasteland and Stifle just levels down the strength of so many decks and a resilient manabase is just so substantial for a control deck. For this reason I have to reject your idea of increasing the number of fetchlands again and I even consider that single Tundra as unnecessary (it would become pointless without dragon anyways).

[Iron Buddha]

I've tried Impulse but was not impressed. Impulse is good against combo and such as, but it doesn't help you to get ahead in the grindy matchups, whereas Eternal Dragon is a 5/5 flying beater – the grindy matchup is my concern.
But I understand that the Dragon doesn't do anything against combo. As for card-selection in the early-game, I think Top is best, because you can use it again and again. I've also tried Condescend, which I think was pretty solid.
In general I think the best card-selection spells are not the cheap ones, but the expensive ones, because they have in-built card-advantage.

Cutting one FoF for another PW is an acceptable move. I wonder how many 4cc cards is optimal, and what is best split:
3 Supreme Verdict
2 FoF
2 Jace
2 Elspeth
1-2 more bombs. (Actually I prefer something more battlefield related than Jace for the last slot)

[Erdvermampfa]

I can see your concerns about the attrition matchup especially since these decks (Stoneblade, Jund, Shardless BUG) are quite frequently played right now (as you mentioned already). But is eternal dragon really the card that we need so pressingly there? I mean it's by far not bad to have a 5/5 flyer with added flexibility for early use, but wouldn't other cards such as Gideon Jura, Decree of Justice etc. be more effective then? To be honest I still consider Impulse to be superior because being able to dig for answers such as Supreme Verdict is just so crucial to get the game under your control and Impulse is just as good at the role of a 'acceleration' spell as Dragon.

And like you I've now come to question if Clique is a necessity in the maindeck. It appears to be a certainty that he'll get removed as it's the only creature (at least at the early stage of the game). For this reason it neither serves as a finisher nor creature removal particularly well. His reliability at killing PW is also questionable, as we gathered above. Clique is at least decent against Stoneblade and only really shines against combo, especially against Show and Tell decks. Clique is the card that ensures us that combo isn't an automatic loss and moving it to the SB (meaning we probably have to cut some Spell Pierces or Flusterstorms thus weakening the combo MU further) feels somewhat awkward. However, doing so would offer us the possibility to fill the slots with more bombs, which haven't to be high-costed by the way so the curve wouldn't necessarily be mutilated. Right now I'd probably go for 1 Decree of Justice, 1 E.Dragon (I still run Impulse instead) and 1 Gideon Jura. I would furthermore cut 4 Pierces to move 3 Cliques to the Sb and add 1 Mindbreak Trap there so the combo MU doesn't get too bad.

It also stroke me that Surgical Extraction is only a reliable answer to Punishing Fire preboard because once you have pulled the Cunning Wish->S.Extraction move off they'll be more attentive and use their Fires only when having 2 Groves out or so. This has led me to the idea of adding 2-3 Rest in Peace in the SB whereby we'd also improve the Dredge/Lands matchup (we're cold to the initial right now).

[Piceli89]

A blue-based control deck that willingly skips not only Jace the Mind sculptor, but also Brainstorm is not even worth being looked for a second. A Standard (type 2) deck has more or less the same powerlevel of the list posted.

[Erdvermampfa]

Unfortunately this is probably the mindset that stopped people from adapting on the circumstances. There appear to be certain 'dogmatic facts' that people are kind of afraid to think against.

Brainstorm is the most prominent example here and it applies to Force of Will and to a lesser extend to Jace too. It just doesn't come to your average mind that these cards are in fact ineffective right now or simply inferior to other stuff. Cards like Fact or Fiction, Decree of Justice, Cunning Wish etc. aren't bad because of their high cost but because people deem Brainstorm as an auto-include thus playing shitty manabases with fetchlands/duals and opening them up to disruptive strategies. If you run a resilient manabase, cards like the aforementioned become quite strong actually. So instead of continually lowering your overall costs of spells in control decks and in this way weakening your game against attrition decks I'd give our approach a try. I surmise you'll surprised how superior it actually is in comparison to over control approaches like Standstill/Manlands etc.

As for Jace: We gathered above that he's a very legitimate choice and I'm currently running 3 in fact, but one also has to acknowledge that decks like this one are in need for some kind of wall to seal the game after you gained control and therefore other cards like Skull or Elspeth have to be taken into consideration as well because they fulfill this role significantly better than Jace does.

[Lemnear]

There is a new thread about that Eternal Dragon, Nevi Disc, Fact or Fiction, no-Brainstorm bullshit dismissing a lot of working U/W control strategies just for the sake of being different?!

Running cards what require double blue or double white or even 1UWW like Verdict without duals/Brainstorm and only with 4 fetches while claiming that this works against the Legacy metagame is laughable. It's not like landdestruction is Part of the meta aside from RUG, which is a deck FoF and Co. are worth shit. I tested that crap for the lulz during te last thread being active and it was hilariously bad

I'm still waiting for the promised top performance report of the Dragon/Disc/FoF build ;)

[Iron Buddha]

There is a new thread about that Eternal Dragon, Nevi Disc, Fact or Fiction, no-Brainstorm bullshit dismissing a lot of working U/W control strategies just for the sake of being different?!

Running cards what require double blue or double white or even 1UWW like Verdict without duals/Brainstorm and only with 4 fetches while claiming that this works against the Legacy metagame is laughable. It's not like landdestruction is Part of the meta aside from RUG, which is a deck FoF and Co. are worth shit. I tested that crap for the lulz during te last thread being active and it was hilariously bad

I'm still waiting for the promised top performance report of the Dragon/Disc/FoF build ;)

The threat density was too low, especially the amount of midrange bombs: needed more Elspeths, Vendilion Cliques and Batterskulls/Gideons. I'm even not running Disk anymore, but Supreme Verdict as was suggested to me.

I don't understand how you come to think that the manabase is not good enough to support Supreme Verdict. There are 15 blue and 15 white sources, and running a single Tundra is not much of a stretch after all. Wasteland is the bane of control.

Every card of this deck is way above standard cards, especially everything that costs 4 mana and the Vendilion Cliques, so how can this deck have the same-powerlevel as a Standard deck? Wish and basic lands, on the other hand, are rather metagame considerations, than efficient (broken) cards.

I've reduced the Dragon count, too, because it really is only a land against miracle and combo. But the loss of (a few) 5/5 flyers needs to be offset. I wonder how many creatures/creature-like PW do you run? Pressure through the battlefield is extremely important, I can't stress this enough. Vendilion Clique is just another card that provide this. Right now, I'm still on 3 Cliques, but that is largely due to the fact that the options are limited, Geist, SCM, Venser, etc. they are all much weaker than Clique, Gideon and Batterskull (I slightly overreacted in my previous post, it is very solid) are very strong, but they cost 5 mana. In fact the third Elspeth could even be better before running Gideon/Batterskull.

RIP is a card that comes in and out of my SB all the time.

Btw, I switched back to 3 EE and 2 PtE, the overall removal-package feels more balanced that way. The fact that EE deals with Counterbalance, EtA, Jitte, Sylvan Library, Aether Vial, and Nimble Mongoose cannot be overlooked.

[Lemnear]

To me it's counter-intuitive to run Batterskull together with global removal, but no SFM's to Tutor for it and cheat into play against fast and aggressive decks.

I'm glad that you finally cut the Disc's you once defended like your child.

Just an idea if you found love for Clique: Try adding Venser and 2-3 Karakas. Both creatures and Karakas are insanly annoying to play against, offer killoptions and are bare impossible to kill. That might take off some pressure against combo and pesty permaments.

I'm still for running Ancestral Vision over FoF for having mana available to defend your carddraw from (taxing) counters

[Erdvermampfa]

Lemnear's suggestion of combining Karakas with Clique and Venser is somehow appealing but I wonder if it's worth to open ourselves up to Wasteland again by running 2-3 Karakas. It would probably further improve the matchup against decks decks without Wasteland but weakens those running it because every land loss just hurts this deck more than any other. I can conceive that a package of 3 Cliques, 2 Venser, 2 Karakas and 1 Tolaria West to find Karakas might work though. Note that neither Venser, Karakas nor Tolaria West are that bad on their own so it wouldn't necessarily cripple the deck too much.

But in general I'm still uncertain if we shouldn't just abandon the preboard combo matchup and instead focus on the aggro/midrange/control decks. The problem appears to be that Cunning Wish claims too many SB slots and we can't really fill our SB with a sufficient amount of hate if we aren't packing Clique maindeck already.

this is my list which focuses on winning the fair matchups and neglects the S&T and combo matchups at least preboard:

2 Fact or Fiction
3 Cunning Wish
3 Path to Exile
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Supreme Verdict
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Flooded Strand
12 Island
7 Plains
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Impulse
1 Gideon Jura
1 Decree of Justice
1 Eternal Dragon
SB: 1 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Path to Exile
SB: 1 Fact or Fiction
SB: 1 Pulse of the Fields
SB: 1 Dismantling Blow
SB: 1 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 1 Misdirection
SB: 1 Wing Shards
SB: 4 Flusterstorm
SB: 3 Vendilion Clique


Gideon seems decent as long as BUG Shardless is so commonly played. Decree of Justice is rather underwhelming though and I'd probably go for an Akroma's Vengeance or a second dragon instead.

As you can see I dedicated my SB to hate combo but I still doubt that Cliques, Flusterstorms (which also get boarded in against RUG) and that Mindbreak Trap as a Wish target will suffice. I thought about playing Canonist because he's much more reliable against storm than Clique but useless against S&T. Clique is decent against both matchups.

[Lemnear]

Tbh you can use Venser to bounce Karakas with Wasteland on the Stack and create cardadvantage.

Tolaria West and Wish are simply too slow for midrange or combo opponents. You'll need at least spell Pierce to bridge into Counterspell or into your 4cc carddraw.

I still have no clue why you so vehemently dismiss Brainstorm and Fetchlands to sculpt your hands and gain instant access to Counterspell/Spell Pierce/FoW just because of a single deck in the format playing Stifle